Rustie - Glass Swords

A step into a future sounding uncannily like the past

The boundary-nudging boy producer from Glasgow signed to Warp Records who isn’t Hudson Mohawke, Russell Whyte shares the same obsessions as his fellow sometime Numbers alumnus. This record is a step into the future to find it sounds uncannily like the past, from the oriental prog-synth wash of the title track to ‘Hover Traps’; an unlikely collision of electro and trance, and ‘Globes’ looping, wilfully repetitive appropriation of a bangin’ big-room house riff.

There are also shades of glistening, Kanye-style dance-pop production to a hip hop beat on tracks like ‘Ultra Thizz’, ‘After Light’ and the chip-pop swaggering ‘Crystal Echo’, hinting that Rustie’s a producer who, like HudMo, will be picked up by the big boys soon.